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Gardens by the Bay

In honour of Chinese New Year, we wanted to celebrate by sharing one of Asia’s most jaw dropping and inspiring pieces of architecture. Singapore was once known as the “Garden City” but in 2005, the Government announced it’s plan to transform it to a “City in a Garden”. At the beginning of 2006, there were more than 70 submissions in a public competition to design the park and two firms – Grant Associates and Gustafson Porter – were awarded with the honour of making Gardens by the Bay come to life.

The inner city park’s two main attractions – the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest – are surrounded by outdoor gardens sprawling across 101 hectares. The Flower Dome is the world’s largest columnless conservatory thanks to some brilliant engineering where the 3,332 pieces of glass sit on a steel grid and acts like an eggshell.

It’s a cool-dry conservatory which means it replicates the climate of regions like South Africa, Spain, Italy and California and is divided up into countries so you can stroll around and enjoy some of the most beautiful and unique plants in the world.

The Cloud Forest is mysterious – as soon as you enter, you’re welcomed by a wall of water crashing to the ground and creating a humid mist. It’s the world’s largest indoor waterfall cascading out of a manmade mountain showcasing plants from tropical regions.

To understand the sheer scope, take the elevator inside the mountain to the top and walk around it on the suspended pathways and through the Lost World and Secret Garden.

What we find the most inspiring are the engineering geniuses that have used some of the strongest and heaviest materials to construct something so light and delicate, and then filled it with plants from all over the world so you can experience so many environments all in one afternoon.